For Ninety Days the Debt Level Remains Exactly the Same at the End of Every Day

You can’t enforce the debt level when the government has the power to manipulate it.

I reported back in April that the Treasury Department was playing the same games with the debt level that it is still playing now. The amount is frozen in place so that the debt level does not exceed the legal limit. Then it was a forty-day freeze. Now it has remained frozen at the same level for fifty more days.

The portion of the federal debt that is subject to a legal limit set by Congress closed Thursday, June 11, at $18,112,975,000,000, according to the latest Daily Treasury Statement, which was published at 4:00 p.m. on Friday.

That, according to the Treasury’s statements, makes 90 straight days the debt subject to the limit has been frozen at $18,112,975,000,000.

$18,112,975,000,000 is about $25 million below the current legal debt limit of $18,113,000,080,959.35.

The Daily Treasury Statement for March 13 was the first to show the federal debt subject to the limit closing the day at $18,112,975,000,000. Every Daily Treasury Statement since then has reported the same thing: the debt closing the day at $18,112,975,000,000.

Every Daily Treasury Statement since Monday, March 16, has reported the debt beginning and ending each day at $18,112,975,000,000.

This shows you how useless it is to try to restrain or constrain Big Government. Not only do you have to trust the government to enforce the rules on itself, but you also have to trust the government to tell you the truth about whether or not it is breaking the rules. In cases like this it is obvious that some kind of deception is being constructed. But if they do it when it is obvious, then we have every reason to believe they lie at other times that we have not yet detected.

No written or legal code can restrain a government from increasing the debt when it is in the best interests of each and every politician to increase the debt level. Politicians win support by spending money. This is often true of the voters, and it is always true of the lobbyists and business men who in turn give donations to the politician to help him stay in office and also enjoy other perks.

That’s why, while this story gets reported by some conservatives, no one in Congress makes a big deal about it.